Category: General

“Six people were killed or injured by strangers in the sanctity of a private home. Several children lost parents. Many families were devastated. The community’s sense of security was shaken by the apparently random nature of the attack.”

— Justice Colleen Suche

Time passes. It’s pretty obvious, I guess, that people can and do change.

But when it comes to those who commit the worst criminal acts, it’s natural to wonder: ‘Do they really? Can they?’

That’s the major question looming today, exactly 11 years after a senseless triple homicide rocked the city and sent multiple families into dealing with staggering loss and trauma.

Four thousand and 17 days ago early this March 29 morning, police and paramedics rushed to a home on Alexander Avenue.

A harmless birthday party had been suddenly shot up, leaving three innocent people dead and three others critically wounded by the gunfire.

Two Indian Posse street gang members fired bullet after bullet indiscriminately into the party after kicking open the home’s back door — 19 in all.

One of the shooters, Colton Patchinose, then 18, believed — falsely — a person who had stabbed him 10 days earlier was at the party.

It was an asinine revenge shooting gone totally, madly wrong. (As if they could ever go right.)

The other shooter: a lanky kid named Joseph Jared Taylor.

Just 15 at the time, JJT became one of the city’s youngest mass killers in a couple blinks of an eye.

He and Patchinose were tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Patchinose can’t ask for parole until 25 years has passed.

But things are different for JJT.

Because he was tried as a youth and sentenced as an adult under youth justice laws, parole eligibility comes earlier — Between 5-7 years after his arrest, which came two days after the shootings.

I’m here to tell you that he’s now being granted unescorted temporary absences from prison. The Parole Board of Canada authorized them, conditionally, just two weeks ago.

He’ll be in the community for up to 12 hours at a time for up to 72 hours a month. The gradual freedom he’s been earning from the confines of prison has been building up over the last two years or so.

He’d applied for UTA’s before but was turned down. That changed on March 14, parole records show.

And while the temptation to rage against this fact may hit hard — ‘but he murdered three people in cold blood,’ one might yell — there’s more to JJT’s story.

At least that’s so, as filtered through the lens of PBC documents obtained this week.

This is a tiny bit about what’s happened since he was sent to prison in 2010.

Child soldiers: A very Manitoba problem

Of the striking things that came out about JJT at his sentencing hearing, two really stood out.

His father, present in court, had little to say when offered a chance.

But his economy of words spoke volumes.

“My son was taken from me at a young age,” he told Justice Colleen Suche.

That was all he said, to my recollection.

The other thing was how the judge described him:

“…this is a story of a younger boy following older males. J.J.T.’s vulnerabilities, the absence of any safety net in his life, and the welcoming arms of gangs with their criminal culture replete with guns, turned this age old scenario into a recipe for the most deadly violence.

“It is a chilling but frank reality that J.J.T. is but one of an entire generation of children being recruited as child soldiers in the small armies we know as street gangs, which are constantly at war – with each other, and with society.”

In his most recent parole hearing, JJT spoke about his social history and how events of his background contributed directly to where he wound up.

“You discussed being educated in the street life and how you were immersed in this lifestyle from the day you were born,” wrote the two members of the PBC conducting the hearing, in which JJT was assisted by an Indigenous elder.

“You talked about tragedies in your life, including having to save your mother from an attempted suicide. You described your family as ‘broken people’ who knew no better and had no ability to be good parents or role models. You normalized substance use, violence, gang activity, crime and attempts to survive by (whatever) means available to you.”

Shoot — or get shot

JJT joined the IP at 13 in search of a sense of family and because a relative had been killed in a gang-related incident. (The gang has been described by prosecutors as the most violent criminal organization in Manitoba.)

JJT told the parole board that he soon learned the expectations of him were simple: Shoot or get shot. He soon after found his way from The Pas to Winnipeg, running drugs for the gang, sometimes sleeping on the street.

“You explained how violence was normalized in every aspect of your life,” The parole board wrote.

“In regards to (the shooting), you confirmed that you have limited recall as to the events of that night, but confirmed that you had been consuming alcohol and pills. You recounted travelling to the city to partake to ‘run drugs’ because that what was expected of you.

“This was just another night where you were told to do something, and despite always having weapons on your person, it was for your own protection and not intended to kill anyone. You also stated that you could not say ‘no’ to your gang ‘brothers.’ You were honest about loving the gang life and striving for status within the gang.”

When JJT was on remand, and after being sent to federal prison, things looked grim for him and those trying to manage him in the jails. He was involved in no fewer than 22 so-called “institutional incidents” in less than a year.

He instigated gang assaults, had problems with drugs and gang graffiti, and “set up a girl in a high-risk program to work with a higher-ranking gang member” on the event he was jailed.

(Those watching the news of late likely know the fates of high-risk girls are often tragic).

But then, in 2011 — something changed. At least that’s what the parole board’s records show.

He quit the IP, telling those in charge he wanted out to find a better path. It appears at least part of the inspiration for this move came from an unlikely place.

“You had even received some advice from a ranking gang member that life changes were possible and you believe that because you were interested in following a Red Road, they likely let you disassociate without a ‘beat out,’” the PBC members wrote.

Since that point, JJT has taken steps — and been granted escorted time away from prison — to have a gang tattoo removed. He’s finished high school, connected with his cultural heritage and done programming. He’s been going to AA and NA meetings. Not long ago, he joined what’s called the “inmate wellness committee” to help out in planning cultural events.

“You described your connection with Aboriginal culture and spirituality as being pivotal in your life … you demonstrated respect for protocol and the importance of maintaining abstinence ad violence-free life as a way to honour yourself and your victims.”

He was moved to a minimum-security healing lodge last August. As of November he’d completed more than 100 escorted temporary absences — including one which lasted four days to go to traditional pipe ceremonies “in the mountains.”

“You confirmed with the board that at no time have you ever attempted to push the boundaries or limits.” He considered the ETA’s a “privilege,” the board notes.

Psych evaluations rate him as a “low/moderate” risk for future violence. He’s at that same range for potential reoffending, the PBC says.

When he was denied unescorted temporary absences in the past, JJT simply kept working toward earning them, the board members said.

He’s also gotten married, to a woman he’d known as a friend, but one his probation officer thinks highly of, and who has said she’d have no issues “to communicate any concerns.”

While out away from the prison (no overnights) he’s to avoid alcohol and drugs, avoid “certain persons” (meaning anyone he knows or may conclude is gang-involved) and to avoid contact with any of his victims.

JJT told the board he can hardly believe he is the person who committed the murders and attempted murders.

“In your closing comments you thanked the board for their time. You acknowleged that you have taken baby steps and that this will be important as you move forward. You reiterated the importance of honouring your victims and respect the protocol as well, as the teachings have become an integral part of your life.

“While you recognize that the road ahead of you is not going to be without its hurdles, you are prepared and anxious to take the next ‘baby steps’ toward your reintegration.”

Today’s anniversary is not lost on JJT, the board says.

“On the anniversaries of your victims’ deaths and injuries, you participate in ceremony and make offerings in respect of their lives. You admitted that you have not fully forgiven yourself and that this will be a life-long process.”

Again: Time passes. Do things change? Do criminals change? Is a kid criminal doomed to a life of crime and misery — or can there be hope?

In Joseph Taylor’s case, maybe?

And although it’s cold comfort to the families of those he murdered or tried to kill — maybe there’s hope for some ounce of good to come out of the wreck of it all.

We’ll see.

-30-

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NOTE: This story appeared, edited to space, in the Winnipeg Free Press, March 18, 2019. The version below is a longer one with full comment from police and the prosecutor’s office, as well as more from lawyer Martin Glazer. It is the first in what will be an ongoing series I’ll be investigating over the coming months.

—-

A veteran Winnipeg criminal defence lawyer is again sounding the alarm over police procedures after his client was recently arrested and jailed in a homicide case where the victim’s cause of death is undetermined.

Juhyun Park, 44, is accused of first-degree murder in connection with the death of his wife, Eunjee Kim, 41.

Kim was found unconscious in an apartment suite on Daer Boulevard early on Jan. 9.

Winnipeg police initially accused Park of manslaughter, but upgraded the charge to the most serious in the Criminal Code on Feb. 8. They offered no explanation of why or what had changed.

Park is facing a mandatory life sentence without parole for 25 years if convicted.

His lawyer, Martin Glazer, told the Free Press an autopsy has revealed no anatomical cause of Kim’s death.

Meanwhile, crucial toxicology tests underway at an out-of-province RCMP laboratory could take up to six months to come in, Glazer said he’s been told.

That’s a delay which shows there’s a systemic problem police should account for in homicide cases where cause of death isn’t immediately at hand, Glazer said.

Police should have waited for conclusive results before charging Park, Glazer believes.

“If the scientific investigation is incomplete then the overall investigation is incomplete,” he said. “In my view you have a wrongful arrest in this case because it’s premature.”

Park has no criminal record, remained at the crime scene until police arrived and was injured by a stab wound in the leg, said Glazer.

He faces the prospect of many more months in jail awaiting trial if he’s denied bail. Park came to Canada from Korea in 2017 on a student visa and was studying to improve his English. Kim, his wife of 17 years, had only been in Winnipeg a couple of days before she died, Glazer said.

Emails Glazer sent to the Manitoba Prosecution Service show he’s been repeatedly requesting more information about how Kim died since Jan. 15. No further information on this point has been forthcoming from the Crown, he said.

“Given the absence of a cause of death in this case I am renewing my request for a stay of proceedings,” Glazer wrote to the Crown on Feb. 12. “As you can appreciate once the toxicology results are available and if it turns out that my client’s wife did not die as a result of foul play then he will have spent a substantial period of time in custody for no reason,” wrote Glazer.

“I question the existence of reasonable and probable grounds to justify his arrest for homicide in the first place … At the very least it appears to me that the arrest in this case was premature and that the police should have held off until a cause of death was determined.”

Murder charge reverses onus to accused persons

He has urged the Crown to either stay the charge — allowing them a year to keep investigating and then re-lay it if warranted— or consent to Park’s release on bail. The Crown has refused, Glazer said. A contested, day-long, bail hearing is set for Tuesday in the Court of Queen’s Bench. Because the charge is murder, it’s Park, not the Crown, who must satisfy the judge he can be released into the community pending trial.

In a Feb. 11 email to Glazer obtained by the Free Press, the director of the provincial medical examiner’s office said the RCMP testing on biological samples “will take a considerable period of time” — between four to six months.

“In a complex case of this nature, where the police investigation remains active and new information (for instance, the deceased’s medical history) may come to light, it would be irresponsible and dangerous for the pathologist to produce a definitive cause of death without being able to consider the results of all additional testing that is pending,” Mark O’Rourke wrote.

Glazer doesn’t deny police are doing their jobs. But he questioned the “cart before the horse” situation he believes has unfolded.

“The problem is in this case is a lack of medical diagnosis, and without it, police aren’t given the tools they need to make the final call,” he said. The Supreme Court of Canada has said police should err on the side of caution and keep open minds before laying charges.

“Don’t presume the cause of death is nefarious, that’s what I’m saying,” Glazer said.

Glazer said he was not in a position to discuss other evidence police may have gathered and deferred to them.

‘Autopsy and toxicology results are just part of the overall investigation’: WPS

And while declining to discuss specifics of the case, Winnipeg police said Friday it’s not uncommon to lay homicide-related charges before autopsy results are in.

“This is also the case regarding toxicology results,” police spokesman Const. Rob Carver said in an email. “Charges are based on the totality of the circumstances, and both autopsy and toxicology results are just part of the overall investigation.” When murder charges are laid, he said, a Crown attorney is consulted.

“Only when they are in agreement are they laid,” Carver said. “Police form the opinion that there are reasonable and probable grounds (to charge someone) based on the totality of circumstances surrounding the incident.”

Manitoba Prosecution Service said Crown attorneys assess a case’s legal elements and quality of evidence before laying charges or proceeding on ones laid by police. “All evidence must be considered,” said a departmental spokesperson.

“The Crown also considers what the medical examiner has assessed, including cause of death, and other relevant issues related to the case. In rare cases, for example, a murder or manslaughter charge might be authorized even if there has not been a forensic medical examination, in situations where the body has not been located or is no longer available for autopsy.”

Timelines for forensic testing can vary, the spokeswoman said, but she added the department is “always interested in timely evaluation and accurate results.”

8 months locked up for an unfounded manslaughter: The Robert Maier case

It’s not the first time issues surrounding homicide cases and delays in justice officials obtaining conclusive causes of death has emerged in Manitoba.

In October 2013, Martin Glazer called for a public inquiry after another client spent nearly eight months behind bars charged with a homicide that was later found to be a drug overdose.

Robert Maier, 38, admitted assaulting Ronald McKinnon, 54, hours before McKinnon was found dead in his Balmoral Street suite on Feb. 26, 2013.

But after waiting months for toxicology test results, a pathologist concluded McKinnon died by overdosing on alcohol and prescription pills.

Police initially said an autopsy showed McKinnon died of injuries sustained in the assault.

Questioned after the actual cause of death came to light, police said it was possible investigators were working on the basis of preliminary theory provided to them by a medical examiner.

Glazer at the time wrote then-Manitoba Attorney General Andrew Swan requesting an inquiry to get to the bottom of questions raised in the case.

He said the province refused but would look into what happened in Maier’s case. The prosecution service did review the matter but concluded the system worked as it should have in the end, said Glazer.

Current RCMP forensic laboratory statistics show an average of 79 days to complete investigative requests for toxicology examinations — but also a backlog of two hundred so-called “routine” cases.

The data, comprising the period between April 2017 to March 31, 2018, shows RCMP labs were able to meet a commitment date on what they term “routine” toxicology exam requests 61 per cent of the time.

All 12 requests put in as “priority” cases were satisfied by the lab’s promised completion date, the data shows.

The laboratories handled more than 2,500 requests for toxicology examinations over the year-long period.

“Case prioritizations are based on set criteria that include the level of risk to public safety (e.g. whether a suspect is still at large or is a significant flight risk, the level of violence, the likelihood of the suspect re-offending) and/or how the results of the forensic analysis will be used in the investigation,” RCMP said in a statement to the Free Press.

“The length of time to complete a service request will depend on the type of analysis being requested, the number of samples, and the type of materials that are being submitted for forensic analysis.”

RCMP laboratories handle forensic investigative requests from police agencies across Canada excluding Quebec and Ontario, which have their own labs.

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One has to give Manitoba’s provincial government some credit: they seem to love a big challenge.

That was my initial reaction to the announcement Friday it’s going to review the intersection between Manitoba’s child-welfare and youth justice systems (the ‘CFS-to-prison pipeline’ as it’s sometimes described).

The goal is to end “cycles of crime” for at-risk kids. Read above graphic for the data that prompted the government to raise the need for this review and overall issue.

Without wanting to pre-judge the results, three things jump out immediately:

It’s about time this happened

The review will likely demonstrate what’s been obvious for a long time

Open your wallet

It should not be news to anyone paying even the slightest attention that Manitoba CFS kids make up a huge proportion of youth involved in the justice system (the province said an October assessment of intakes at the Manitoba Youth Centre was 60 about per cent CFS-involved kids — I suspect it’s higher).

It should not be news that there’s a staggering number of kids in CFS care (between 10-11,000 depending on who is counting).

It should not be news that the vast majority of kids in careand in jail are Indigenous.

The evidence shows this has been the state of things for years and years.

The piece examines policy changes and youth justice reform in Canada from 1995-2015, through the (importantly, here) advent of sweeping, but extremely politically-charged, legislative changes brought about by the advent of the Youth Criminal Justice Act in 2003.

Around 2007, the then-Conservative federal government held roundtables on the issues in implementing the YCJA, and a report summarizing the findings of “youth justice and child welfare professionals from across the country” was written in 2008 (more than a decade ago).

While the article is nationally-focused, Manitoba’s situation looms large in it given the dire state of the youth crime problem here. It’s worth a full read, but I’ll pull out a few things of note:

“A common refrain in the report was the concern about the lack of sustainable funding to support restorative justice and diversion programs. Roundtable participants consensually agreed in principle concerning “the need for systems… to be better resourced to support children and families as they enter the youth justice system, while at the same time all of the provinces and territories “identified a lack of local resources, or sustainable resources to implement the programs and services necessary to fully embrace the YCJA.” Pointedly, in one session, “the YCJA was referred to as a Cadillac on a Volkswagen budget.”

For Manitoba specifically:

“[o]n paper the legislation has a lot of options and flexibility but in reality there are no resources on the front end or the back end; they are all in custody”

(I note, somewhat dryly, that the Justice report referenced here summarizing national and regional concerns was only released way back when via an Access To Information request. TO the province’s credit, it says the current review will be made public).

Delving deeper into the roundtable report specifically, the Manitoba section further elaborates on the situation in 2008-ish:

To be clear, this report is talking specifically about the youth justice system, and not CFS per se.

But given the correlation of who the clients arein the system, it’s pretty clear — our justice system lacks the funding, supports, cultural awareness and programming options needed to try and meet the needs of the kids in (either) system.

The important logical inference is: if so many kids in the jails are CFS-involved, and there’s not enough of these urgently-needed things at hand for the justice system to lean on to try and help them, then there’s not enough in the CFS system either.

Anecdotally (I know it’s not evidence), as a journalist who tried diligently to cover youth-related justice matters as much as was possible (limited editorial interest), the systemic poverty was abundantly apparent. Readers only need look back in this blog’s archive a bit to see tales of how this played out in reality.

So, long story short, it’s about time this review happened. Kudos to the province for that. I worry it’s going to be limited in scope — but it’s not lost on me that a constitutional law expert is among those doing the review.

Here’s the issue: there’s a philosophical problem inherent that needs to be handled carefully.

Shouldthe youth criminal justice system — even one with the overarching goal of rehabilitating kids —get directly involved with child-welfare system-related concerns? Should Crown prosecutors?

It may seem a pointless question, given that so many of the issues a youth justice court deals with are intrinsically linked to child-welfare matters of concern.

But the drafters of the legislation, which basically is the rulebook by which youth criminal justice is done, seem to have not wanted the two to meet.

In the 158-page YCJA, there’s but two specific references to ‘child welfare’ — one, that a court can make a referral at any point to a child-welfare agency to assess whether a young person needs child welfare services (the ratio of who makes up the system makes this tautological).

Two, that a child welfare agency with conduct of a child can access youth court records.

That’s it.

But yet, as Smandych and Corrado’s research suggests, if we’re truly interested in improving justice outcomes there’s no choice but to somehow get everyone playing the same sandbox:

“The related policy challenges are enormously complex because to a considerable extent potential solutions require the intensive coordination of a federal criminal law with a wide range of other federal laws (and programs) along with parallel provincial/territorial laws involving health care, mental health, housing, education, and employment.”

Not a small order — one could theorize that the YCJA could need rewriting to accommodate a new reality. That’s perhaps why the presence of a con law expert to conduct the review is intriguing.

In any event, we’ll see how that end plays out. It’s hard to envision any kind of workable solution to this problem that doesn’t involve vastly greater coordination and honest cooperation between Health, Families and Justice.

But it’s an urgent problem that concerns everyone, so I’m hopeful.

I suspect in large part it will come down to money (doesn’t everything?).

I repeat: open your wallet.

If the funding for early-years intervention and family supports are there ASAP, it’s possible to foresee a decline in youth crime over 12-15 years.

If funding for psychological, FASD, and addictions services are increased for the kids currently in the system, it’s theoretically conceivable we could start to see improved justice outcomes and lower recidivism in 10 years.

But the evidence is there, as it always has been: If we’re really going to make the system better and meaningfully intervene in kids’ lives — it’s going to take massive political will, innovation and cash.

A non-expert’s thoughts on things that may be helpful…

A lot of discretionary power in how youth cases get handled lies in the hands of the federal and provincial Crown prosecutions services. Maybe a close look at how the Crown’s roles and how that discretion is exercised could be revealing. Are cases that should get diverted being diverted? What’s the role of community youth justice committees these days? Should prosecutors be freed up in some way to focus on the worst of the worst violent crimes and young criminals?

One of the big reasons kids spend time in jail is for breaches of bail or probation orders. A close look at court-ordered conditions and how kids are being set up to fail because of them may shed some light on how to reduce remand custody rates. But again, the breach issue is directly influenced by the quality of support systems for youth on bail or probation — overtaxed/ under-resourced is a common complaint.

A study of youth Corrections and its needs could be helpful. There’s no point ordering a young person be supervised, abide by a curfew and get into counselling when there’s not enough corrections workers to be conduits for those services.

One of the major issues that should arise too is social worker workload and their ability to show up to advocate for jailed kids. And, it must be said, that workers sometimes feel relieved when a client gets locked up because they’re in a so-called safe place, so urgency to see them out of custody can be limited. But that’s using the justice system for a child-welfare purpose, and currently not the way things are supposed to happen.

Have we reached a point where a CFS “duty worker” should be present in youth court much like Legal Aid criminal defence duty counsel? That raises massive issues in itself, in terms of CFS agency coordination and information sharing. Not to mention such an idea would likely have to involve the (long-awaited) upgrade to the CFS computer system so that worker could access required information with ease. That’s perhaps upwards of a $100 million expense alone. Yikes.

Always happy to hear your thoughts. -30-

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In a thought-provoking opinion piece today, Melissa Martin writes about the high rate of femicide in Manitoba (second-highest among Canadian provinces as per 2018 data from the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability).

One passage in the piece struck me in particular (emphasis mine):

“This fact should be noted, for the record. Of the 148 women and girls lost to violence in Canada in 2018, only 16 did not have their names released; Manitoba is highly overrepresented in its number of publicly unnamed victims. Why?

That’s nearly half the women killed last year in Manitoba, their stories slipped out of the broad public record. News coverage of their deaths is sparse, limited mostly to rehashes of the scant details from the official RCMP releases.

Without knowing their names, or their stories, they are known to us only as numbers, as data points to be gathered. Anonymous, unmentioned, they are soon forgotten by the broader public — though never by those who loved them.

Maybe it’s easier to look away, to forget, to not ask too many questions. Maybe it’s easier to shake off a headline when it doesn’t have a life story attached. Maybe it helps us believe the violence isn’t as bad in Manitoba as it is.”

Using the data from the above report, I made a very quick spreadsheet which revealed a few potentially interesting things.

Of the 13 femicides in MB last year, at least six of the victims went unnamed by RCMP. Winnipeg police appear to have identified the victims in their related investigations (Five of 13).

As well:

Arrests were made and charges laid in 12 of the 13 cases. The remaining one was deemed to be a murder-suicide

Nearly 40 per cent of those charged in these cases are women and girls. The most common charge laid was second-degree murder, followed by manslaughter. Not one was charged with first-degree murder (potential indication of planning and premeditation)

Two of the cases also involved a suspicious fire-setting

Media coverage of these cases, as Martin notes, is very skimpy save for one or two of them.

It should be no secret to reporters that Manitoba RCMP are lacking when it comes to meaningful public disclosure (having a Twitter doesn’t count).

D Division’s largely press-release-based culture when it comes to its major crime investigations has existed for a very long time.

Sometimes, there’s valid reasons for staying mum, but not always and certainly not to the extent they do. You can judge for yourself by scanning their press releases here.

They don’t hold regular face-to-face press briefings, so reporters’ ability to ask questions is limited largely to emails and phone calls. I suspect Manitobans overall don’t know 1/10th of what actually goes on in terms of crime in their communities.

(I suspect they’d be very alarmed if they found out the true nature of things, however, that’s somewhat beside the point.)

Here’s a very recent example of public disclosure by Manitoba Mounties:

Two young men dead by apparent homicide in a house in what is a very small community.

That’s all that’s said by police, setting aside who on the force is helping out who.

This happened on Wednesday.

It’s now Saturday afternoon and RCMP have issued no updates. Is there a homicidal maniac at large in Bloodvein? Who knows?

Better question might be — who cares?

A media scan indicates that only four outlets have published any semblance of information on this matter, and each simply parrots the RCMP release.

Maybe herein lies the larger problem?

The fact that the RCMP is skimpy with investigative information isn’t new. Media reports suggest that their refusal to name victims dates back to 2015 but my practical experience tells me this policy dates much further back than that. They’re very tight-lipped, even in the most high-profile of cases such as the recent terrorism-related case in Ontario.

However, my quick femicide data analysis seems to show that public disclosure by police in these Manitoba cases does not seem to have any bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the investigations themselves.

Again, charges were laid by police in each of the 2018 cases but one, where there was no suspect to charge.

So, in my mind, we’re left with this: If these cases actually matter (I firmly believe they do), then media in Manitoba could do more than simply scratch the surface of them.

This isn’t a critique of Martin, as her noting these cases fall out of memory quickly is bang-on, and her column serves to bring attention to the issue.

Instead, I’m making more of a broad-based observation about the troubled state of provincial crime coverage.

I’d be especially critical of community outlets in areas outside the cities that almost seem to go out of their way to avoid looking into crimes happening in their own backyards, seemingly leaving the harder-hitting stories to major outlets based in Brandon or Winnipeg.

And overall, my view is media spend far too much time letting police dictate what the news is and leaving things at that. Many times it seems if they don’t talk, then it’s as if there’s no story.

Fact is, if the story or issue actually matters, then it matters to pursue it.

If news coverage of these events is sparse, then embrace the power to do something about it.

But behind the scenes, one of the more interesting legal battles I’ve seen was playing out.

In June 2013, Roulette sought to have his charges tossed out, alleging a failure by prosecutors to disclose evidence in the case had effectively ruined his chance at defending against the charges.

The unusual move — in which Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Robert Dewar found there was delay caused by the Crown’s slowness to disclose — didn’t work and the trial went ahead a few months later.

The key evidence against Roulette was testimony from two unsavory witnesses, one of whom was (by time of trial) a deceased crack addict and naturally couldn’t be cross-examined beyond what defence lawyer Greg Brodsky was able to do at a preliminary hearing when Russell Glow was still alive and in witness protection.

It came as zero surprise to me that Roulette quickly launched an appeal after being convicted given the quirks in the case.

But this week, he found out he’d lost that fight too. Here’s Court of Appeal Justice Alan MacInnes’s reasons why that’s so.

It remains to be seen if Brodsky will take the case to the Supreme Court in hopes of winning a new trial for Roulette.

But setting sympathy for him aside, Dorion is also one of Manitoba’s most frequent flyers in terms of the jail time he’s served over the past two decades.

Locking this one man up has cost taxpayers a small and still growing fortune.

And other than freeing the streets of his intoxicated nuisance for a few months at a time by jailing him, there’s little else that can be said about the financial ‘investment’ Manitobans and their justice system have made in Dorion thus far.

When I finished researching the piece on Dorion in mid-August he was pending sentencing yet again. There was a plan in place, however, to get him out of Winnipeg to take up life on the El’Dad Ranch in a remote area near Steinbach.

The ranch hosts an alternative justice program, described as “a safe environment for men with intellectual disabilities and involvement with the criminal justice system to learn life skills, experience a community built on positive values and to build positive relationships, with the aim of providing a therapeutic alternative to prison.”

In addition to this (and on-site counseling and addictions treatment), Dorion’s also able to take part in a day program to build skills: chopping wood, caring for animals.

That plan came to fruition Aug. 19.

Funding from the Provincial Special Needs Program (PSNP) was (and is, for now at least) paying the bill.

It bears mentioning that PSNP has had Dorion on their “active” case roster since February 2012, but his offending hasn’t halted.

Leg pain led to urge to huff, defence lawyer says

When time came to freshen up the reporting in advance of publication a few weeks back, it came as absolutely zero surprise that Dorion — despite going to live scores of kilometers outside of the city — was already back in custody charged with breaching a stay-away order from his beloved gas-huffing haunt: the U-Haul lot on McPhillips Street.

He’d come into the city with a worker to see a movie on Sept. 28 and quickly absconded under the guise of going to get a soda.

This led to him being rearrested and returned to the familiar drab confines of the Winnipeg Remand Centre, where it costs Manitobans $196 per day to hold him, if not more, given his medical needs and cognitive impairments.

Why he says he left the theatre? According to his lawyer, the pain in his legs from his prostheses (he lost both limbs to frostbite a few years back after passing out in the snow) drove him to want to get high. So he wandered many blocks to the U-Haul, as he’s done countless times before.

Nevertheless, those 36 days spent as a so-called free man at the El’Dad Ranch was the longest period of time Dorion’s spent away from jail in more than four years.

A week ago today, Dorion was again sentenced, bringing his official tally of criminal convictions to over 100 since 1991.

The hearing, in front of no-nonsense provincial court Judge Carena Roller, went as routinely as virtually all of Dorion’s sentencings have over the last seven years.

His massive record of convictions and IPDAs was filed for Roller to scrutinize.

Roller was ultimately asked to acquiesce to the latest plan for Dorion, to note his 52 days of custody and return him to El’Dad with tightened up conditions aimed at keeping him in check.

Roller agreed, and endorsed a new clause in a new 15-month-long probation order effectively banishing Dorion from Winnipeg without being accompanied by a worker. He also needs prior written consent from his probation officer to come here.

“I can’t understand why you do what you do. Especially when I hear what happens to you when you do it,” Roller told Dorion, who appears to have gained a considerable pot-belly since the last I saw him earlier this year.

He gazed towards her, impassively.

“Do you like being there (El’Dad) … better than going to U-Haul?,” she asked Dorion.

“Yeah,” he replied.

‘Yeah, but do you, John — do you really?,’ I thought to myself in the back of courtroom 401.

Because this is the key question, really.

‘Exhibited maturity’

Given Dorion’s storied history, it would be natural to want to take anything Dorion says with a grain of salt, to believe he’s just a hopeless case — a living ‘ghost in the machine’ — we’ll just always continue to throw money at.

But a letter his PSNP provided to the court suggests there is, in fact, some cautious optimism for the future of John Dorion, whose ultimate goal is to hopefully one day return to his home community of Crane River.

In the month Dorion spent free at El’Dad he “engaged very well with his supports (and) participated well in his vocational day program,” PSNP worker,Melanie Muehling wrote in a Nov. 14 joint letter to community prosecutor Paul Girdlestone and defence lawyer Amanda Sansregret.

Perhaps most surprising to me of her findings was how she says Dorion “exhibited maturity” through “recognizing the benefit of his placement and his choice to remain clean and sober.”

His PSNP worker believes these things, combined with the fact Dorion been out of jail for more than a month, “is a huge success, and indicative of a working plan.”

Maybe, just maybe, Dorion’s El’Dad plan will work out. His worker seems to think it could. Keep him away from his central temptations — the sniff and the U-Haul —for long enough and it’s possible something might stick.

It’s the possibility Dorion would be actually a free man instead of just one in stasis due to the fact he’s geographically too far removed from his vice to feed it.

“It is my opinion that Mr Dorion does not have the intellectual or emotional ability to deal with stress and anxiety by problem-solving an alternative response to attending U-Haul and using solvents,” Muehling wrote.

But that’s not to say he doesn’t have some insight into the power of his addiction, Muehling suggests.

“Mr. Dorion has confirmed to me that he knows that if he is residing in Winnipeg, he will ultimately succumb to the temptation to attend U-Haul. Our program has introduced a solution (the El’Dad ranch) that would see Mr. Dorion physically removed from this temptation, and provide external motivation for Mr. Dorion to abstain from solvent use,” she states.

I can only hope this is the case.

But, one wonders, why did it take so very long for this relatively simple solution — court-sanctioned displacement — to rear its head?

-30-

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[Update/addition: Friday, May 9: In putting this piece together, I neglected to include a city child soldier case which ranks among the worst, if not the worst, Winnipeg’s ever seen: The case of JJT, who was 15 when he and another Indian Posse member shot up a house party on Alexander Avenue in March 2008. Three were killed and three severely injured. There was no motive to the crimes, other than the older IP member, Colton Patchinose, was angry at being ejected from the party just before the shooting. He went to fetch JJT and the two shot up the place with handguns. “My son was taken from me at an early age,” JJT’s dad told court, referencing the street gang influence on his son at his sentencing. JJT recieved a life term. You can, and should, read more about his background here. But I conclude this brief update with Justice Colleen Suche’s comment on her decision to sentence him as an adult:

“It is a chilling but frank reality that J.J.T. is but one of an entire generation of children being recruited as child soldiers in the small armies we know as street gangs, which are constantly at war – with each other, and with society.”)

—-

Sirak Okbazion, 14. Clarky Stevenson, 15, Paris Bruce. 16.

Hearing the names of these three teens should give each and every Winnipegger pause.

They weren’t just teenagers involved in street gangs.

They also represent, respectfully, a decade-long grim lineage of ‘child soldiers’ who were influenced or preyed upon by older gang members to do their dirty work.

These kids are also dead today.

And it’s not right. It reflects a failure of our society that they died so young and so violently.

Beyond that, you can draw a kind of map (and in fact, I have) tracing the lineage of street gang-related mayhem that resulted as spillover from the separate killings of these three city teens.

Action prompts reaction: It’s not just a law of physics. It’s also part of the street gang ethos. You hit us. We hit you.

I’ll give you a very brief breakdown.

Sirak’s homicide was committed when he was 14 in 2004 by the West Broadway-area B-Side gang in response to one of their members being shot at.

It spawned fare more than just greater violent conflict between Sirak’s newly-founded gang, the Mad Cowz and the B-Siders. (Both factions are still with us today, just noting).

Sirak’s death led to internal strife within the Mad Cowz, which saw the creation of the African Mafia in protest of how Sirak’s death was (or was not) avenged. That strife led directly to multiple shootings, firebombings and other violent mayhem.

Worse yet, it directly influenced the death of innocent Phil Haiart, who was gunned down by AM members Corey Spence (15 at the time) and Jeff Cansanay as he simply crossed a West End street.

Cansanay, the triggerman goaded by Spence to ‘shoot, shoot,’ was aiming at two Mad Cowz members, but missed.

The resulting fallout from Haiart’s murder became a kind of chromosome in Winnipeg’s DNA.

How the political and police response shook out to the 17-year-old’s death is part of our essential makeup as a city.

From Haiart, we caught a close-up glimpse of an awful truth: Kids are being used by gangs, and kids, by virtue of their ages, are unpredictable. Maybe I could be next, people wondered.

Stevenson’s stabbing in 2011 in the North End has likely caused more bad blood between entrenched street gangs – he was an Indian Posse associate – than one might believe.

Well liked by many and known for being ferociously fearless, sources tell me Stevenson was on track to taking a place in the IP’s gang hierarchy.

So, when it just so happened he wound up stabbed to death, allegedly by suspects linked to the MOB gang, violence spilled over between the two groups in waves, and to some degree continues to this day.

Soon after, innocent David Michael Vincett, was shot by James Sinclair – just 14 – on Boyd Avenue.

Bruce, aligned with the Mob Squad – a splinter faction of the MOB – was led into a plot hatched by an older gang member to take over an Indian Posse crack house.

Just weeks before Bruce was beaten to death by IP members, the gang superior, Joshua Jeffs, who got Bruce mixed up in the plot that would claim his life, was viciously attacked by four teen IP members with a hatchet and machete for being part of a group that attacked their Boyd Avenue hangout by surprise.

Jeffs, according to prosecutors, also enlisted another teen and an 11-year-old boy to try and take over the Redwood Avenue crack shack.

Bruce, maybe not comprehending fully what he was getting himself into, tried to run when IP guys caught on to what the Mob Squad was trying to do. He wound up beaten and stabbed to death.

It’s no mistake that the Crown used the words “young soldiers” to describe Bruce, the other teen and the 11-year-old and their position within their gang.

Despite how ugly the tactic is, it should be more than patently obvious by now that older gang members are well-aware of the benefits of using younger guys to do the dirty work.

To them, the ‘kids’ are expendable – and, let there be no doubt, in great supply – even if they’re dying off or being sent packing to jail for a time as a result of their involvement in the gang underworld.

I’ll repeat: The fact that any kid winds up in a gang is a signifier to us that something is wrong with our society.

Whether they wind up there because of poverty, addictions, for protection or for a sense of belonging, seeing our youth wind up being used by criminal factions they way they are should be nothing short of alarming to us.

But recruitment continues, relatively unabated, and has done so in Winnipeg for a long time now.

What’s to be done about it, I can’t offer a solution other than to say every child needs a baseline of normality in their lives in order to have a chance at success over the long-term.

What I am sure of — and it should be pretty clear by now if you’ve gotten this far — is that “child soldiers,” “young soldiers,” or whatever you want to call them, are a blight not just on the gangs they’re enlisted in, but on us as a society as a whole.

We should be shocked and outraged by the brutal, violent deaths of people in our city who have barely lived.

I get the sense we’re generally just resigned to the fact that this happens to some of our youth. And it’s wrong.